The objective of this tool is to provide guidance to identify the key variables that influence the current system of the company.

The tool is part of a set of tools called System Analysis. System thinking is an innovation-oriented approach generally separate from operating and thinking in every day business issues of companies. It allows a better understanding and common visualization of the current system the company is acting within.

This tool is the first tool of the MEPSS System Analysis toolset. It allows to gain an understanding of the system, using as a starting point the list of variables and indicators. This enables to save time during the workshop in which this system description is prepared. The tool also aims at the internalisation of system thinking among the workshop participants in the fist phase of PSS development.

The objective of this tool is to generate a set of relevant variables that describe the system of the company or a part of it (e.g. a product line). This description will be based upon the different views and experiences of all stakeholders involved in applying the tool.

The application of this tool is essential whenever the system or its boundaries are changing or when new issues or goals or new stakeholders are included.

Use of this tool is strongly recommended for the first workshop, involving the main actors willing to carry on the PSS idea development phase.

Within MePSS, this tool is part of the integrating backbone for using the whole methodology. It is useful in the Strategic analysis phase in order to increase the number of potential ideas, by enlarging the perspective of the participants.

At the same time applying this tool is also useful whenever you start a changing process in order to generate a common starting point (as the vision the company is related with), that will allow the participants understanding their proposal and basing them upon a common background hypothesis

2.2 Who should use this tool?

This tool should be used during a workshop. The workshop leader should be familiar with this tool and will propose this tool as a moderation instrument in the first stakeholder workshop.

Before the stakeholder workshop, it can be useful that the participants prepare separately their individual perspective by providing the following input:

1. a list which contains the main variables regarded useful for describing the company system

2. identification of the indicators, as factors the company have influence on;

3. identification of the external influences

What is a variable?

A variable can be seen as a little sub-system of the overall system. It will be described by a set of quite similar topics and data  the indicators which determine the way of acting for example in system simulations  and by a clear and relevant title. In all further steps the indicators will be put in a box and the users of the tool only deal with the titles of the variables and the relations between them.

Step 2  Conducting the workshop

During the workshop, the moderator indicates the way in which to use the checklist, to consider variables on the technical, organizational and cultural level for the current system.

Invited participants to the workshop elaborate a common set of variables and indicators essential for describing the company system. This is achieved during a group discussion with a moderator, using the checklist and including the individual preparation done by the participants.

This process is carried out together with the stakeholders involved and it is based on the discussion of the variables. It is based on the analysis/identification of the indicators (factors the company have influence on) and external influences (factors whose behaviour the company will strive to anticipate, (as it cannot influence them)).

The provided checklist contains suggestions of indicators and external influences enabling a focused discussion and a constructive process. The variables suggested in the checklist will be handled in a flexible manner. The group may decide to skip some variables, combine or add others. The use of the checklist as a guideline guarantees that all relevant aspects from a wider system point of view (cultural technological organizational) have been discussed and adapted for the specific application under development.

The essential is that all participants agree on the result and that the resulting list contains approximately 10  20 variables.

Table 9: Variables checklist overview

3.2 Result

The tangible result is a set of 10 to 20 relevant variables and a set of indicators for each variable. This represents the (companys) overall system, as seen by the participants of the workshop.

3.3 Input needed/ data required/ data acquisition process

The tool needs the participants view of the system. As it is mainly a process, the relevance of multi-perspective of the participants will allow a deeper understanding and more realistic overview of the system. The quality of the resulting set of variables, in terms of being realistic and accepted, is determined by the variety of different perspectives from the whole value chain that are considered in the description phase.